Little shop of horrors

It's sometime between 2:30 and 3 am on a Friday (or is it still Thursday?) and I'm wandering the aisles of the Annex Dominion with Post-it note in hand. On it I've scrawled: milk, oatmeal, pasta, coffee filters, scrunchie.

Scrunchie? I scratch my head. Oh yeah, that shower thingy that somehow turns body gel into lather. My current one is unravelling and looks like a sad old bridal veil.

The store is a mess, probably because it's halfway through major renovations. There's a guy laying tiles in the produce aisle. Convenient.

You shop in the middle of the night to avoid lineups, and what you get instead are cardboard boxes cluttering the aisles, workers on their break blocking the entrance and people making out in the frozen food section.

Yup. Bet they met at Lee's, had a few drinks at the Future Bakery down the street. I know you're probably totally in love, but I really don't need to be reminded of my single status while looking for whole-wheat Eggo waffles (an impulse buy). Get the fuck outta my way and go to the condom aisle.

Usually there's some lulling Muzak to add to the surreal feel, but not tonight. Maybe it's the construction. A leathery old guard walks the aisles like a spectre. An Asian woman in sweatpants slinks by, suddenly making me feel like I'm in a J-horror film.

I've got everything (reaching for the oatmeal almost dislocated my shoulder, it was so far back on the shelf) except the scrunchie. I walk up and down the bathroom aisle. Soap, shampoo. No scrunchies.

Note to self: maybe try the 24-hour Shoppers on my bike ride home. Or get some sleep and buy another time.